Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/60

 want, both part and parcel of one young nature, like the romantic outlook upon school life, were equally foreign and incomprehensible to the other. Jan could only see Carpenter floundering to the rescue, with his big head and his little wrists; and the vision made him laugh, though not unkindly.

"You would have been a fool," he said.

"I wish I had been!"

"Then you must be as big a one as I was."

"But you weren't, Rutter! That's just it. You don't know!"

"I know I was fool enough to lose my wool, as they call it."

"You mean man enough! I believe the chaps respect a chap who lets out without thinking twice about it," said Carpenter, treading on a truth unawares. "I should always be frightened of being laughed at all the more," he added, with one of his inward glances and the sigh it fetched. "But you've done better than you think. The fellows at the bottom of the house won't hustle you. I heard Petrie telling them he'd never had his head smacked so hard in his life!"

Jan broke into smiles.

"I did catch him a warm 'un," he said. "I wish you'd been there."

"I only wish it had been one of the big brutes," said Chips, conceiving a Goliath in his thirst for the ideal.

"I don't," said Jan. "He was trading on them being there, and by gum he was right! But they didn't prevent me from catching him a warm 'un!"

And in his satisfaction the epithet almost rhymed with harm.

Nevertheless, Jan looked another and a brighter being